Friday, July 26, 2002

Naval Noise: Whale of a Problem. U.S. Navy sonars have turned the oceans into such a cacophony of sound that they're destroying the habitats of whales and other creatures. The Navy is being brought to court over its latest program. By Noah Shachtman. [Wired News] 11:56:05 PM

The week in review: PCs under attack. Imagine trying to boot up your computer and finding that a hacker had disabled it or destroyed your data. Then imagine having no legal recourse because the government sanctioned it. [CNET News.com] 10:18:16 PM

Questions questions questions. Can a small record label run a virus too, or just the monopolies? How about a software company? How about the Department of Justice? Can they install a virus on our systems to look for terrorism and report it back to the FBI? Do you think that would be constitutional? What if there's a conflict betw a record label's virus and a car dealer's virus, which one survives? Can a record label rent space it its virus to do someone else's bidding? Could they put an advertisement in their virus? Can I go to the bathroom while using my computer? What information on my hard disk is private? What if I record my own MP3, can they erase that? Who pays for the bandwidth the virus uses? Does their virus have an implicit shrinkwrap agreement? Can Symantec defend against Hollywood's virus? Could an irate user write a virus that seeks out Michael Eisner's computer and destroys his data? What about Jack Valenti's computer? Hillary Rosen? Can we read their data? Do we have any privacy remaining after this law is passed? [Scripting News] 10:17:07 PM

Amy Wohl: "This is yet another example of corrupt politicians, paid by wealthy constituents to enact unfair laws." 10:13:13 PM

Joe Conason's Journal. Slate throws a Clinton tantrum, Sullivan spreads a bum rap and Dr. Susan Block wonders of the Rigas family: "Do you think they understand bondage now?" [Salon.com] 10:11:38 PM

MS goes security patch crazy. SQL high, Exchange low sure to keep BOFHs on the go [The Register] 8:24:07 AM

DUI, You Get Raped -- Plausibly Deniable It's the Law. The Rocky Mountain News reports a 19-year-old man was repeatedly raped at the Jefferson County Jail after deputies placed him in a cell with a sex offender [James Westbrook] who had attacked another inmate hours earlier. The victim's crime: Failure to comply with an alcohol program, plea-bargained after being arrested for driving under the influence (DUI). "Plausible deniability" gives government officials the cover to rule as they wish: Their practices the de facto law of the land. [kuro5hin.org] 8:23:14 AM

Bush's goal: Defy gravity. People doubt he can manage the economy and less than half think he should be reelected. And yet his approval ratings are sky-high. [Salon.com] 8:22:44 AM

Joe Conason's Journal. Tom DeLay -- and fellow Republicans -- are worried about the midterm elections. And it's beginning to show. [Salon.com] 8:22:08 AM

Congress blasts Feds on cyber-terror FOIA games. "It astounds me that at a moment in history when transparency in business is in the headlines every day -- the need for us to know what is going on in our private sector, which has deprived many of our citizens of their ability to retire, and employees of their retirement plans, set the stock market diving because of this lack of transparency, cooking the books -- that now we want to offer...not a narrowly-constructed exemption, but a loophole big enough drive any corporation and its secrets through." [The Register] 8:18:53 AM

IBM and Linux our biggest threats - Microsoft. Inspirational [The Register] 8:16:50 AM

Mary Wehmeier has a list of radio stations silenced by CARP. It's a very lonnnng list. [Scripting News] 8:12:22 AM

AP: "Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., formally proposed legislation that would give the industry unprecedented new authority to secretly hack into consumers' computers or knock them off-line entirely if they are caught downloading copyrighted material." [Scripting News] 8:11:14 AM

Ethical hacker faces war driving charges. Houston, we have a problem [The Register] 8:10:17 AM

Big software pushes hard for national Gestapo. BSA drooling over Homeland Security pork [The Register] 8:08:33 AM

US sides with Axis of Evil to thwart UN torture protocol. The UN's Economic and Social Council passed yesterday a new, important instrument: the draft Optional Protocol to the UN convention against torture. Voting against it (or actively opposing it) we've got the usual suspects (China, Egypt, Cuba, Saudi Arabia) and, guess what, the US. [kuro5hin.org] 8:06:24 AM

© Copyright 2003 Michael Alderete.